Showtime releases video of Ward's eye injury suffered while sparring

Showtime has released a video of the sparring session during which WBA super middleweight titleholder Andre Ward suffered a cut over his right eye on Sept. 22.

Ward had the seven stitches removed on Sept. 30, but not before having to postpone his scheduled Oct. 15 clash with WBC counterpart Carl Froch until Dec. 17.

Ward (24-0, 13 knockouts) will face Froch (28-1, 20 KOs) at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. for the championship of the Super Six World Boxing Classic and THE RING's vacant 168-pound belt.

The video will be shown as part of an episode of Showtime's Fight Camp 360 documentary series leading up to the clash.

Ward described how the injury occurred during an exclusive interview with RingTV.com.

"It was just a very, very strange situation. I say that it was a fluke situation simply because of the way that it happened. I was wearing headgear. I really don't have a pin-point answer on what caused it. But I know that we took the normal precautions that we take for training camps. I had been wearing the protective headgear with the bar over my eyebrows. My nose isn't even exposed," said Ward. 

"You know, we were just mixing it up in sparring and doing what we normally do. I think that there was a brief clinch, and I came out of the clinch and I was getting ready to go back in and my sparring partner stopped me and he said, 'You're bleeding.' And I said, 'Wow, I'm bleeding' So I ran over to the corner, and [trainer Virgil Hunter] looked at it, and I saw the look on his face and the sound of his voice, and that let me know that it was serious. So Virg basically said, 'It's bad.'

"I said, 'What do you mean it's bad?' So I took the headgear off and I looked into the mirror and there was a nice gash. So I was just taken aback."

Photo Credit: FIGHT CAMP 360°/SHOWTIME

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lem.satterfield@gmail.com